An Echo of Things to Come by James Islington

I enjoyed this book but not quite as much as its predecessor. The first book was very easy to jump into and I was unable to put it down. This one is a lot more complex and a huge amount of the pages are dedicated to flashbacks for one character in particular in order to flesh out his backstory and motivations. For me it was equal parts revealing and distracting as they appear out of nowhere but with a regularity that demands you embrace them or fall by the wayside.

I picked this up immediately upon finishing The Shadow of What Was Lost and looking back on that I wish I had waited just a little. It's obvious the author James Islington skills have increased, his ambitions have grown and he has attempted to move beyond the themes that made the first book so familiar and easy to read but in doing so has has written a very different book in terms of style and pacing.

I'm happy to rate this as "I liked it" because I am not one to read 750 pages if I am not enjoying myself but I do believe I'll give myself a little time before a jump in the finale.